


Tied Up In Knots

by BlueRam



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, Valentine Special
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRam/pseuds/BlueRam
Summary: The city was strangely calm. Couples huddled together, and cars smoothly cruising down wide streets lined with palm trees. Naraku paused as he watched them sway, wondering how the palm trees could be so calm when his heart was racing and a damn lump was stuck in his throat.





	Tied Up In Knots

_Song by Wave & Rome (Be My Girl) my inspiration_

**_Eyes_ ** ****

**_Ocean eyes_ ** ****

**_I keep swimming down even deeper_ ** ****

**_But I don’t think I’ll ever find the bottom of you_ ** ****

He didn’t care who was looking. Not the old man down the street, not the old biddy at the shop corner or even the man at the hot dog stand. He rocked his hips to the beat of the music, head bobbing side to side in beat as he all but skipped his way to work.

Even from a distance, he could smell the bittersweet aroma of rich black coffee, sweet hot buns with the melted sugar glaze and that tangy tamarind paste slathered over brown crisp toast.

If it wasn’t for the obnoxious socialite wanna be prissy ass bitch that was his supervisor and her three brain-dead stooges, he’d probably say he loved the little place. Nestled away at the corner of cobbled streets, a cosy little get away from the all the noise of the city and the pompous air of towering palm trees in a place where palm trees had no business.

Naraku grinned—razor sharp from behind golden shades when a mother turned up her nose at him, pulling her child to her side like she cared. Never mind he had seen her forget her precious little Tommy, with the too sticky fingers, swiping a purse a two, in their little coffee shop.

He gave a cheeky wink, satisfied when the woman turned beet red. Confused on whether she should be aroused or outright disgusted. Naruku didn’t even bother to see what her decision would ultimately be. Pulling his earphones from his ear just in time to hear the chime of the overhead bell as he entered Yasha’s Tea World and Café.

“You’re late!  _Again_!” It was Mel, his supervisor, unfortunately. Already her lips were screwed up like some senile old lady taking a dump. Hand on her hips, and glare full of scorn as she looked him up and down.

If he had it in him, he might have sighed for the shit fest that was coming his way, but instead, he opted to zone her out.

“Hello Mel, goodbye Mel!” Naraku shouted, grabbing his apron and jumping over the serving counter. A few college kids cheered, and whistled, cups raised to air like beer cans. The bags under their eyes screamed finals week and cramming session.

He mocked bowed with a roguish grin, quickly pining up his thick curly in the messiest bun possible just to piss Mel off.

“Naraku!”

“Mel!” Naraku mocked, already busy stacking up cups and filling empty coffee bean jars. The woman huffed a sigh of frustration, pinching the bridge of her nose to ward off an oncoming headache.

Naraku always did this. Flouncing in late, music blaring from his earphones, dressed in too tight black pants and those stupid midriff band shirts that never looked good on her! Not to mention his stupid black matte lipstick and ridiculous hair and thick lashes that went on for days.

No man had any business looking that good! Well…except if it was her favourite customer. Mel blushed at the thought, looking around excitedly, only to deflate when she realized the subject of her infatuation wasn’t there yet.

His name was Sesshomaru—she didn’t know his last name, but he was damn fine. Tall, handsome and imposing. Dressed to the nines in an obviously custom tailor-made suite that fit him like a damn glove and showed off the most amazing of asses, only matched by Naraku’s firm bubble—

And just like that her good mood was gone!

“You  _can’t_  wear that!” Naraku continued to ignore her, flipping her the bird before searching through the cupboards for whatever.

“Augh! I can’t understand why you’re not fired yet!” She screamed, stumping her feet in place before flushing in shame when the entire café looked her way. She cleared her throat, straightened her straight skirt as much as she could and wobbled off on heels much too high for her to manage. A different walk of shame Naraku smirked to himself when he glanced at her over his shoulders.

“Really, you should stop antagonizing her Naraku, she’ll get you fired,” It was Kagome, brown eyes soft in worry s she fiddled with the cash register. She had this terrible habit of nibbling on her lips that just irritated Naraku on the best of days. Not to mention the thumb biting, but she was a sweet girl, he wasn’t going to be a Grinch to one of his only two friends.

“Look Kago—shit!” He didn’t even think about it! He was ducking under the counters and shuffling away as fast as he could on hands and knees to get to the storerooms.

Shit!

He peeked over the counter, only to pale when he realized he was right. He wasn’t seeing things! He was jeering about Mel’s walk of shame when he would be doing one right there at that given moment on his freaking hands and knees!

“Naraku what are you—?!”

“Shhh! He’ll fuc—shit!” Naraku hissed, heart beating like a mockery of bongo drums in his chest, his skin hot with nerves and still frozen on his knees like some sewer rat caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic!

**_Say it, Say it, Say it_ **

**_You’ll always be my girl_ ** ****

**_Whatever you want_ ** ****

**_I’m on a string_ ** ****

**_But hold it in_ ** ****

**_If it’s not what you mean._ ** ****

That damn song was blaring from the speakers now. The very same one he was dancing to on his way to work, lost in the moment where he was wrapped up in—

“Good morning, welcome to Yasha’s Tea—” Kagome’s flustered voice sounded, her legs brushing against Naraku’s head as he desperately tried to keep quiet where he was  _not_  hiding.

“Coffee, black.” Silky baritone. Smooth like dark chocolate that slid down one’s spine and left your knees week.

“Would you like sugar with that, sir?” Kagome cleared her throat, fighting her nerves when her newest customer pinned her with the coldest of stares. He looked well put together. Intimidating even, with his black suit and shiny watch that took away nothing from perfectly manicured nails.

She swallowed tightly as she watched those elegant fingers rap against the hardwood of the counter, the man steadily getting more annoyed with her spacy behaviour.

She quickly looked down at her feet where Naraku was glaring hellfire at her. Whispering loud enough for the damn café to hear that she should stop staring at him. She was making it obvious apparently!

“And a cappuccino with extra sugar for the imbecile at your feet!”

“Ri—” Kagome didn’t even get her words out before Naraku was up on his feet snarling over the counter.

“Now that was fucking uncalled for, you asshole!”

“Oh, it speaks,” Sesshomaru drawled. The fact that he sounded bored with the whole situation only incited Naraku’s rage. If it wasn’t beneath him he would so jump over the counter and punch the prissy asshole.

“Oh, do suck a bag of dicks, Sesshomaru!” Naraku didn’t care that he was making a scene or that that pretty Kagome’s virgin ears were being tarnished. This damn pretty boy just always knew how to get under his skin on the best of days!

“Yours, you mean,” Sesshomaru spoke with a hint of a smirk, not an ounce of shame when Naraku’s cheeks flamed supernova red. Even Mel who had come out, hands on hips to see what the commotion was about was taken aback by the uncommon sight.

Naraku did not blush! The little punk fiend didn’t have enough decency in him to feel shame or embarrassed!

“You piece of shit!” Naraku jumped over the counter or would have if Kagome didn’t haul him back by the tag of his stupid shirt, his hands flapping about comically as he grabbed after Sesshomaru.

“When you’re done acting like a child you know where to find me,” Sesshomaru sniffed, looking around in disdain before taking a casual sip of his coffee.

“Acceptable.” He grimaced, you would think the coffee tasted awful and offended his “delicate” sensibilities! He raised a brow at the star-crossed crowd that watched the two of them in wonder, ignored Mel who quickly tried to catch up with him, her goons stumbling behind her.

Steaming coffee in hand he looked over his shoulder and had the audacity to look smug.

“Remember, Naraku, I don’t have all day. You either come, or you don’t. Your choice,  but if you do…you still owe me that coffee.” He didn’t have to say more, leaving as quickly as he had come and like he always did, a world of devastation behind him.

Naraku glared, hands balled into tight fists at his side, nails biting into tender flesh. His ruby eyes were even more menacing than they normally were, and even Mel who had balls much too big for her tiny Victoria Secret breaches hesitated to even say a word.

A tense moment passed before he finally tore off his apron, and stormed into the storeroom, slamming the door behind him.

“He—hey, you can’t do that!” Mel screamed getting over her stupor to give the punk a piece of her mind.

**_It’s making me crazy_ **

**_Got me dizzy_ ** ****

**_Dancing under my eyelids_ ** ****

* * *

Naraku sighed, stretching the knots in his back, wincing when they made the worst cracking sound known to man. His earphones were hanging around his neck, the cold evening wind chilling his exposed stomach. There was only so much a mid-riff shirt could do.

The city was strangely calm. Couples huddled together, and cars smoothly cruising down wide streets lined with palm trees. Naraku paused as he watched them sway, wondering how the palm trees could be so calm when his heart was racing and a damn lump was stuck in his throat.

He looked down at the coffee in his hand, still steaming hot. Was he doing the right thing? He’d been running from this very scenario for ages now and yet here he was running head first into it.

He and Sesshomaru met ways back. He was fresh out of college looking for a job because his degree contrary to popular belief wasn’t getting him anywhere, not without a million years of experience.

It was at the coffee shop too. He was dancing up a storm as he mopped up the floor, earphones blaring. He didn’t give two shits…till he had to.

He’d knocked over Sesshomaru’s coffee, said coffee then proceeded to spill over the man’s laptop, a fucking laptop he couldn’t possibly afford.

Worse he found out that Sesshomaru was some stuffy cutthroat businessman with all of his important files on said laptop. One that looked like he would eat him alive and not in the good old filthy way.

To say they got into a screaming match would be putting it lightly. They had a freaking brawl! Sesshomaru getting punched in his perfect teeth and him getting held in the most humiliating of headlocks and forced to submit. Feet scattered like some newborn foal or whatever kid donkeys were called….or horses, that sounded like horses.

He hadn’t like that much!

After that, they kept seeing each other all over town. Ignoring each other didn’t work, especially with Sesshomaru suddenly visiting the café every Monday and Friday to just fucking stare at him. One day he said fuck it and approached the standoff prick.

Sesshomaru, of course, insulted him, pissed him off to hell and back and then…then they just happened.

They were meeting in clubs, hooking up in hotel rooms, till it wasn’t hotel rooms, it was Sesshomaru’s penthouse in one of those high rise skyscrapers he swore he would never live. He met the man’s old man and his brat adopted sister Rin that wasn’t so much a brat and more that she acted like one and not to mention Sesshomaru’s crazy bitch of a mother.

Don’t get him wrong, he loved the woman to hell and back. She was his type of people if not a little more on the prissy side.

“You sneaked out this morning,” It was Sesshomaru. Naraku hadn’t even realized he had reached the bridge overlooking the longest river in existence, at least to him, the sun setting in the distance, its shimmering image painted across rippling water.

“You’d sneak out too if your  _not-_ boyfriend randomly decided it was high time he told you he loved you right after a bout of mind-blowing sex!” Naraku glared, clenching the steaming cup of coffee tight before ultimately resting it on the railing.

His bun came loose then, thick curls falling over his shoulders and down his back. Almost like those curtains in the stuffy opera that Sesshomaru and surprisingly his hooligan kid brother liked.

The same kid brother who owned the café and visited twice a year. Yeah, it was a small world when it came on to the man it seemed. And wasn’t it a surprise that a stuck-up ice prick like Sesshomaru had so much family and they were actually down to earth likeable people.

He refused to face Sesshomaru, it’s not like he would catch a glimpse of that amazing molten gold. No, he wouldn’t because Sesshomaru was facing the sunset, hair loose and flowing in the wind, gloved hand clenched around the metal railing.

**_Eyes_ ** ****

**_Ocean eyes_ ** ****

**_I keep swimming down even deeper_ ** ****

**_But I don’t think I’ll ever find the bottom of you_ ** ****

“And now?” The question seemed out of the blue for how long they stood there in silence, neither giving.

“Wh—what?” The fact that Naraku stuttered was enough for Sesshomaru to finally look the man’s way.

“What are you going to do about it? Run again, stop answering my calls. Flee the country?” If it wasn’t so damn condescending Naruku would have probably felt shame but damn it to hell, Sesshomaru was always like this! He would tell him to piss off, he really would…till he saw the flicker of doubt in those golden eyes. The way they shifted to the side just the slightest to not look at him directly.

A vulnerability.

Sesshomaru was never vulnerable!

“We— _You_  don’t do this! Relationships and love and—it was sex and friendship and a fuck you to the world, cause what were the odds two people like us would— It’s not like I—this can’t happen! Even if I—” Naraku stuttered again. The words lodged in his throat. Guilt rising and the whisper of hypocrite almost like a snake’s hiss in his ear.

A fucking spider’s web he was spinning because deep down…deep down…he wanted to say—

“I—I—

**_I’d trade it all to have the words_ ** ****

**_Say it say it say it_ ** ****

**_You’ll always be my—_ ** ****

Sesshomaru said nothing, a flash of anger and maybe hurt—but that was ridiculous—casting a shadow over his eyes before nodded his head stiffly, stepping back to distance himself from his—whatever they were. He hadn’t even realized he had stepped closer to the beauty, and what a beauty Naraku was.

An unattainable beauty.

He opened his mouth as if he would say something before thinking better of it.

He tucked his hands in his pockets, the wind chilly against his skin and his expression hardened.

“I wasted your time. Apologies,” he didn’t even wait to get a response. He turned and began to walk away, black cloak fluttering in the wind, leather shoes echoing along the cobbled bridge road.

Naraku felt his whole world sink into the pits of his stomach.

What the hell was he doing!

He—no—damn his insecurities. Damn his fear of commitment and his ex that left him scared of those silly three words that meant nothing and everything!

Every memory they ever shared hit him like a freight train in that instant. Their fights, their laughs their quiet moments by the sea, pant leg rolled up to their ankles. Those little smiles he would get out of Sesshomaru, the smile that softened his eye and made him seem human, approachable.

Movie nights and walks in the city his arm around Sesshomaru’s waist, the man’s arms over his shoulder.

A safe space.

Their…their kisses. Demanding and hot and ever raging until they were but sweet chaste whispers that lingered for a minute too long to not mean something deeper.

“Wa—wait!”

Smudged lipstick, blotched eyeshadow and chipped nail polish. Amusement in the rise of a silver brow when he rocked his hips to the latest music and made a nuisance of himself on their bed.

_Their bed_.

Nights wrapped up in each other’s arms, bodies cooling, hair plastered against skin, gentle caresses of soft skin and pouty lips. The wonder in their eyes, Sesshomaru leaning over him, a curtain of silver silk hiding them from view.

_**Whatever you want**_ ****

**_I’m on a string_ ** ****

**_But hold it in if it’s not what you mean_ ** ****

“I said wait, damn it!” Naraku shouted, gripping the back of Sesshomaru’s cloak tight enough that the skin of hand bled to white. He rested his forehead against that firm back, feeling the heat that seeped into his body. Feeling the strength hidden under heavy cloaks. A strength that only he knew for a while yet and the times to come.

“To—tomorrow is Valentine’s day. I…I want those stupid red roses that make no sense and god-awful chocolate with the complimentary giant teddy bear that’ll low key scare me at night when I put it in the corner of my room!”

Sesshomaru turned slowly, large hands gently gripping Naraku’s thin arms.

“And the stupid carnival trips that smell like mouldy socks and your stupid Opera session that makes me cringe every time, curse my uncultured soul,” Naraku glared. Sesshomaru wouldn’t even mention how his eyes glistened.

**_Shooting right through me_ ** ****

**_Black and white movies_ ** ****

“And now?” Sesshomaru repeated. He loathed the idea of vulnerability again. That he would open his heart where it had always been cold and indifferent for a scrap of hope from this strange being that had taken over his life by punching him in the teeth.

Inuyasha was right, he was a damn masochist.

Naraku bit his lips, fighting with himself, before looking up, stare unwavering if a bit terrified.

“I—lo—don’t make me say it!” Naraku glared, shoulders slumping when Sesshomaru only raised a brow.

No mercy it was.

“I—I—I love you. I love you, Sesshomaru. I fucking love you, you asshole!”

****

**_Tied up in knots like champagne pearls_ ** ****

**_Say it say it say it_ ** ****

**_You’ll always be my girl_ **


End file.
